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CHAPTER I4

Totally Worrying

     Sasha had never seen someone so bloodied and banged up when Kaz came back from the Slat. Though, granted, she'd never seen anyone in an actual fistfight before.

As soon as the door swung open, Brynn's eyes fluttered open and she took a deep breath, her interest piqued. She was still laying down on the couch, but Sasha had gotten her to keep down a little bit of food soon after Kaz had left. She sat up straight, eyes wide, when Kaz limped into the room.

"What happβ€”" Before she finished, she groaned, clutched her side, and fell back down on the sofa. Nina sighed at her.

"I told you not to move," she said. "You'll hurt yourself."

"Yeah, be careful or Mother Nina will make sure you get back to full health," grinned Jesper.

Nina scowled and shoved him. "Be careful or I'll tear the spine from your body."

Jesper took a cautious step away from her, but Brynn's eyes never left Kaz, until he disappeared into the bathroom. Then she leaned back into the couch, letting out a pained breath.

"Someone please force Kaz to explain what happened," she croaked.

"I would, but I don't think I want to force a man covered in blood that I'm not completely sure is his to do anything," said Sasha.

Matthias shook his head in something between admiration and disbelief. "How many lives do you have, demjin?"

"One more, I hope."

Brynn groaned again. "Kaz, talk. Now."

"It went about as well as expected. That's all you need to know. Keep working with Colm."

"What is wrong with him?" grumbled Nina as she trudged back into the sitting room.

"Same thing that's always wrong with him," said Jesper. "He's Kaz Brekker."

Brynn rolled her eyes. "Yeah, the curse of Ketterdam."

"I heard that."

"Wasn't trying to keep it a secret."

Sasha looked from Kaz in the bathroom and Brynn on the sofa suspiciously. Something had changed between the two since Kaz left for the Slat, but she just couldn't tell what. And whether it was a good change or a bad change, Sasha didn't know.

Nina grabbed a waffle from the table and shoved it at Brynn. "Eat," she demanded. "You look awful."

"Gee, thanks," muttered the girl. "But I'm good."

"Eat or I'll shove it down your throat," Kaz said from the bathroom. Sasha grimaced at the lovely picture of Kaz shoving a waffle into Brynn's mouth that had appeared in her mind.

All her sister did was scowl. "Great motivator, Kaz. That totally makes me want to eat this waffle now." Even though she was obviously being sarcastic, Brynn reached out and grabbed the waffle from Nina's hand. She took a disgusted look at it, glanced in Kaz's direction, then took a small bite. Her face contorted, slowly chewing the bite, and even Sasha didn't want to make her eat anything else. Brynn went for another bite, but shook her head, holding it out back at Nina.

"I can't. I'm sorry."

Nina nodded sadly and took the waffle back, then folded it up and took a large bite of her own. She noticed everyone staring at her. "What?" she asked with her mouth full.

"Nothing," said Wylan. And when he met eyes with Sasha, they burst out laughing.

Everyone else must've thought they were crazy, but Sasha couldn't have cared less. The pressure of the last month and a half had built up and she'd finally broken. Though, instead of shouting at people or crying, she was laughing. And with Wylan, probably the one person who seemed to understand her the most out of the group.

She hadn't realized it, but these people weren't just Brynn's friends anymore. They were her friends too, even if she was a few years younger than them all. She might have even said some of them were like family.

~~~

When Inej slipped back into the hotel room, after speaking to the entire group about the Grisha Triumvirate, she kneeled down next to Brynn and they talked to each other in hushed tones. Every once in a while, they'd glance over in Kaz's direction. If the boy knew they were talking about him, he didn't show, instead staring out the window with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Everyone seems to think she's going to be alright," Matthias said from next to Sasha. He'd stood there for a few minutes, watching Brynn and Inej whisper together.

Sasha nodded. "Yeah. Nina's okay, though she's a little changed. Maybe that's a good thing for Brynn."

"'Okay' is relative," he said. "But she's alive, eating, and flirting like she always used to."

She watched Nina gobble down a cake, getting crumbs all over the floor. "I think 'okay' is an understatement, though," she murmured. "Thanks for not telling me Brynn will be fine. I couldn't count on my two hands and feet how many times I've been told that already."

The big Fjerdan shrugged. "Telling people that the ones they love are going to be okay doesn't help when they don't actually know if they're going to be okay."

Sasha couldn't have agreed more. But Inej had stood up and everyone was getting ready to meet the Ravkan Grisha Triumvirate, except for Inej, Nina, and Matthias. At first, Sasha also wanted to stay behind, but Brynn had insisted.

"I need my biggest supporter there," she'd said.

"You mean you need your crutch," muttered Sasha.

Brynn had grinned at her, despite her sickly pale skin. "You know me so well."

And Sasha was her crutch the entire way to the hotel baths. The five of them were silent the entire walk there, aside from Brynn's shallow breathing and the thumping of Kaz's cane on the ground. They reached the lift and Brynn leaned back against the railing behind her, retracting her arm from where it had settled from across Sasha's shoulders.

The lift opened and everyone got out, aside from Brynn and Kaz. They were staring at each other, an electric intensity between them. Then Kaz held out his cane to her.

"Use it." His voice was barely a whisper, and Sasha had to strain her ears to hear.

Brynn narrowed her eyes. "No."

"Brynn, it isn't a debate."

"That's exactly what it is." She paused. "Actually, it's not even that because a debate would mean there's a chance I would take your cane. Which there's not."

"You can barely walk."

"I can walk just fine," she said, limping over to Sasha. "You have your cane and Sasha is mine for now. Stop worrying." Brynn put her hand on Sasha's shoulder for support.

Kaz scoffed, walking past her. "I'm not worrying."

When he was out of earshot, Sasha glanced up at her sister. "He was totally worrying."

They followed the others through the luxurious purple-and-white hallway, following the sound of running water to a room with a large circular pool at its center. Sasha nearly stopped to marvel at the elegance around them, but continued behind her companions, helping Brynn to squeeze in next to Kaz, Wylan on Sasha's right side.

Three people stood by the pool, even though they'd been told they would be meeting with two members of the Triumvirate. The one-eyed girl in the red-and-blue kefta must've been Genya Safin, the Tailor, which meant the girl who looked too gorgeous to be real with a head full of beautiful ebony hair must've been General Zoya Nazyalensky. The third man with them looked about in his twenties, wearing a teal frock coat, brown leather gloves, and a set of Zemeni revolvers slung around his hips. Even though all three were amazing, Sasha couldn't take her eyes off of General Nazyalensky in her blue-and-silver kefta.

"We told the Grisha to come alone," said Kaz.

"I'm afraid that wasn't possible," said the man. "Though Zoya is, of course, a force to be reckoned with, Genya's extraordinary gifts are ill-suited to physical confrontation. I, on the other hand, am well suited to all forms of confrontation, though I'm particularly fond of the physical."

Kaz's eyes narrowed. "Sturmhond."

Sturmhond. The name sounded familiar, but Sasha couldn't quite place where she knew it from. Then a conversation she'd had with another prisoner in the Ice Court came to the top of her mind.

"He says he's a privateer, but I say he's just cocky," the woman had told Sasha. "It's all luck, what he's able to do and get out of. I heard he even might have been a Grisha."

One of the other prisoners scoffed. "Grisha? Please, he's hardly Grisha. Just a man, like every other stupid one in this place. He can bleed and he has a normal life span, just like the rest of us." She'd grinned, baring off her yellowed teeth. "Though it'll be much harder to spill my blood than it will be to spill his."

Looking at the man himself, Sasha wasn't so sure.

"Do you really have a flying ship?" blurted Jesper, the other piece of the conversation blocked out from Sasha's mind.

"No."

"Oh."

"I have several."

"Take me with you." Sasha saw the way Jesper's eyes lit up in excitement at the thought of a flying ship. Sasha was fine staying at sea level.

Kaz didn't look remotely entertained. "The Ravkan king lets you negotiate for him in matters of state?" he asked skeptically.

"Occasionally," said Sturmhond. "Especially if less than savory personages are involved. You have a reputation, Mister Brekker."

"So do you."

"Fair enough. So let's say we've both earned the right to have our names bandied about in the worst circles. The king won't drag Ravka into one of your schemes blindly. Nina's note claimed that you have Kuwei Yul-Bo in your possession. I want confirmation of that fact, and I want details of your plan."

"All right," said Kaz. "Let's talk in the solarium. I'd prefer not to sweat through my suit." When the rest of them made to follow, Kaz halted and glanced over his shoulder. "Just me and the privateer."

Brynn and Kaz exchanged another one of the intense staring contests between the two out in full motion. Finally, Brynn glanced at the others in the room, then back at Kaz. "Don't do anything stupid," she warned.

"I don't do stupid." He vanished with Sturmhond back into the corridors.

Brynn snorted. "That's one of the stupidest things you've ever said." She turned to the other Grisha and, when no one spoke for a good while, she did. "It seems Wylan has a request for you, Miss Safin."

Genya's face was bemused, her scars tugging at the corner of her mouth as she smiled. "He does?"

The boy looked at Brynn and Sasha nudged him. "Yes, ma'am." He shook his head. "Miss Genyaβ€”"

"You're the boy Nina tailored to look like Kuwei," Genya said. "And you want me to try to undo her work?"

"Yes," Wylan said. "But I don't have anything to bargain with."

Genya rolled her single amber eye. "Why are the Kerch so focused on money?"

"Says the woman with a bankrupt country," murmured Jesper.

"What was that?" snapped Zoya.

"Nothing," said Jesper quickly, a lie already on his tongue. "Just saying Kerch is a morally bankrupt country."

Zoya eyed him warily, almost as if considering which way of killing him she would enjoy the most. "If you want to waste your time and talent on these wretches, feel free. Saints know there's room for improvement."

"Zoyaβ€”"

"I'm going to go find a dark room with a deep pool and try to wash some of this country off."

"Don't drown," Genya called as Znya flounced off, then said conspiratorially, "Maybe she'll do it just to be contrary." She gave Wylan an assessing glance. "It would be difficult. If I'd known you before the changesβ€”"

"Here," Wylan said eagerly, digging in his pockets. "I have a portrait. It's old, but..."

He handed her a miniature canvas with a painting of him on it. He also offered her one of the posters Van Eck has created promising a reward for his safe return. "And this."

"Hmm," she said. "Let's find better light."


a/nβ€” What do you guys think about the little Kaz/Brynn moment? This chapter was kindof boring, but the next few will be verry interesting and I think y'all will like them. 


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